First Annual List of Banished Climate Change Terms

December 31st, 2017 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.

Lake Superior State University has just released their 43rd annual list of banished words and phrases. These are usually new terms that pop culture has invented which professors at LSSU find silly in some way.

Since I attended that institution for two years, I consider myself to be grandfathered in to start my own banished list of terms that have been infecting public discourse on the subject of global warming (er, I mean climate change).

Here, in no particular order, are the first five that come to mind. I’m sure you can think of many more. There’s always next year.

Climate Denier How does one deny climate? Climate has always changed and always will. Maybe the intent is, “denier of catastrophic human-caused climate change”; if that’s the case, then I’m guilty as charged.

Weather Weirding Weather has always been weird, so stop with this bit of rhetorical redundancy.

Snowmageddon Back in the day, this was just called a snowstorm or blizzard. We also had to walk 5 miles through it to school, uphill both ways.

Climate Justice No, you are not entitled to whatever weather you want, every day of the year. Yes, we would all like to live in Monterey or Key West, but quit blaming my SUV for your poor life choices.

128 Responses to “First Annual List of Banished Climate Change Terms”

As a funny note, my son actually walks up hill both ways to school. We live right on the walk/bus boundary, and being in the foothills of Boise, my son walks uphill to the bus stop in the morning, and then walks up hill from school to home in the afternoon…now he just needs some snowmagadden to get in the way for stories for future generations…Happy New Year Dr. Spencer

Hey Fox,
It’s 27.5 C here & 70 % humidity, in the Tweed Valley, NSW, I’m sitting in shorts with my cockatiel on my head listening to C,S,N & Y – Deja Vu. All the windows are open and wishing for any sort of breeze!
Happy new year you all!!

Here is the accepted definition of axis of rotation.
Definition of axis of rotation
: the straight line through all fixed points of a rotating rigid body around which all other points of the body move in circles

Here is what you claim: You see, Norman, this *rotation on your axis with respect to inertial space*, as you see it, has a much simpler name. Its called *orbiting*, and it is one of two possible motions the bodies can make. Rotating on their axis being the other motion. The moon does the former, not the latter. The reason? It is tidally locked.

The Moon does both. It orbits around the Earth and it rotates on its axis. You are just wrong. Do you feel better when you make up physics that is not real?

The Moon is linked to Earth like rod attached to it.
A rod could attached to moon and rod would always point at Earth [though earth spins so not attached to Earth surface- but instead end in space above the spinning Earth.

Or where ever you are on lunar surface the Earth is always is roughly in the same direction.

So if at north pole of Moon, Earth will always be in same spot and low on the horizon. If had a house on moon with window facing two mountain peaks with Earth visible in the valley of the mountain peak, Earth would stay there all the time.
The axis of the Moon is in relation to the Sun. The sun circles the polar region. And axis is at 1 1/2 degree tilt to the sun. So once a every 365 earth days, the sun would be in the same valley as the Earth. And if Earth in front of the sun it blocks the sunlight. But most of time the sun is either above or below the Earth, as seen from thru the valley from the house window in lunar polar region.

Oh, rats, no. Sun is in valley every Earth month and in terms earth blocking or above and below, it’s every 29 1/2 earth days of duration. 365 earth day year only has to with the small tilt- lunar northern polar “winter” 1 1/2 degree lower, “spring” 0 degrees, “summer” 1 1/2 higher, “Fall” again O degrees.
And the inclination of lunar orbit of 5.1 degree to Earth is main factor causing Earth [most of the time] to not to block the sunlight to the Moon [or makes sun go up and down in relationship to Earth]

Norman misses the point completely. Gbaikie gets it. David Appell and Wizgeek, thanks for the corrections, but they do not affect the overall point. The way in which Norman considers the moon to be rotating on its axis is in fact simply part of the motion *orbiting*. In other words, it only *rotates* with respect to inertial space. Which is understood, but need not be confused with true axial rotation. For example, the Earth both orbits the sun *and* rotates on its axis. Its a lot simpler overall to say the moon orbits, but does not rotate on its axis. But doing so just seems to enrage Norman…

CO2 is put into greenhouses. Plants need it but the structure keeps a new natural flow from providing a supply.
Thus, there is a connection between greenhouses and CO2.
The structure, by shutting down air movement, keeps the heat inside.
This is all well known.

To words:
I don’t like the way “polar vortex” is used.
It is now used the way “polar outbreak” was used to describe very cold air working its way south to FL & TX.

There may be a couple of people on this site who do, but I have never met anyone who “denies the influence of humans on climate.” Not only is “climate denier” a ridiculous term, it also is a strawman argument in itself. It is a term that prevents rationale and productive discussion — discussion that could lead to mutually beneficial action. There have few better positions stated than the position of George H.W. Bush — let us taken actions that may be beneficial in global warming viewpoints but are definitely beneficial for other reasons. Abandoning his policy, we have taken actions that have been foolish and often counter productive to environmental concerns.
Humans influence the climate in many ways. Deforestation is one example; over forty years ago we noticed that deforestation changed the rainfall in Africa. Another example is urbanization. And a recent paper argues that agricultural advances has led to decreasing summer temperatures and increased rainfall in the farmbelt — and maybe milder winters. Our farm never would never have reached its current production levels if not for the increased rainfall and decreased number of heat waves

“climate crisis” – crises are usually caused by a short term shock followed by a recovery. The campaign against fossil fuel, disguised as concern about climate, is a political movement that’s been going on for decades and will probably continue for decades.

“carbon pollution” – Carbon dioxide is an odorless, colorless, invisible gas essential for all life on Earth. It occurs in nature in quantities many multiple times more than that emitted by man combusting fossil fuels to make our lives less miserable. Referring to it as pollution, often accompanied by a photo of a 1960s era smokestack bellowing dark black soot into the air, is very deceptive.

The ratio of record highs to record lows is a very misleading statistic. if there is a small number in the denominator, the ratio becomes huge and graphs give the impression of impending disaster. A small number of record lows is likely not a real problem, but when the ratio is graphed, one gets the mistaken impression that temperatures are soaring.
It would be hard to believe that the designers of the chart are not aware of the deception.

If the world is generally warmer than in the past (this is the case for all instrumental data sets), you are going to see more hot records than cold.

There are larger data sets of record-breaking hot/cold events. I know one which has been running since 2002, and every year has more hot record breakers than cold (often about 10 times more). This is intuitively correct, because the data compass more than a century, and each decade since the 1960s has been warmer than the last.

I got the list of daily record highs and lows for my little spot on the globe back in 2007.
Most of the record highs were set before 1950 and most of the record lows were set after 1950.
Is that proof that “Global Warming” causes cold?

PS I also got the list again in 2012.
A good number of records fell.
The odd thing is that a number of the 2012 record highs were lower than the 2007 record highs and a number of the 2012 record lows were higher than the 2007 record lows.

The Supreme Court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency is free to regulate carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, as long as the source of emissions in question is a traditional polluter, like a factory or a power plant, rather than a school or a shopping mall.

The Supreme Court did not rule on the science of pollution.
The ruling was whether or not the EPA had the legal authority to regulate emissions of CO2.

Also, “carbon pollution” as mentioned by Scott as a poor phrase to use because the intended thing is carbon dioxide. Not soot or diamonds.

Organic is one of the words that means what one defines it to be.
For example: In business talk, organic growth is the process of expansion by increased activity within, as opposed to acquisitions, defined as inorganic growth.
“Organic food” is defined in various ways to suit a purpose. Mostly it just costs more, and that is the purpose.

When I was growing up in the 60’s and 70’s people said that the strange weather we were getting was because the Russians were changing the weather. Now apparently this cold snap is thanks to a cross-polar flow that came from Siberia. Hmmmmmm?

A few years ago, the weather forecasters for the nearby large city dramatically underpredicted a snowmageddon which hit at the worst possible time. The blowback was fierce, and the forecasters have since taken to overprediciting everything, having decided that the hidden cost of constant false positives was much more tolerable than the very visible cost of a rare false negative. I assume that this is somehow just more fallout from our litigious society, where, like some sort of societal entropy, all costs eventually become hidden.

And yes, the previous paragraph was my attempt to annoy the LSSU word police, and those like-minded.

The only word that really really annoys me is “tunafish”. I’m not sure why, since kittycat and puppydog don’t bother me.

The golden rule was our compact once. You broke it, so with you I practice the rule, “Do unto others as they do to unto you.”

Generally, you are absolutely in no position to cast stones. Nor do you deserve the benefits of the golden rule, as you trash it daily. I may call you a deceitful, game-playing ignoramus with no intellectual integrity whatsoever, but I will never call you a “denier,” because it’s rhetorical, even though it is sometimes appropriate.

What does it really mean? It implies a global climate and there is no such thing.

Heck, I live in a rain forest climate in Vancouver, Canada and within 150 miles NE there is a full blown desert climate complete with sage brush and cactii. The temperatures there vary wildly summer and winter compared to Vancouver.

How does changes in each of these climates relate to overall climate change supposedly caused by anthropogenic forces?

I want to see absolute proof they actually happened to the extent they did. I have seen evidence myself of U-shaped channels carved between mountains by glaciers that no doubt filled the valley. However, glaciers need to travel downhill and I can’t begin to understand how prairie regions could have been covered by a kilometer of ice.

Where did the ice come from? It would have required immense amounts of snow piled on top of previous snowfalls to reach such an elevation. And where’s the proof it was global?

Sorry, I find it hard to accept reports of past extreme catastrophes based on proxy evidence.

If you’ve ever argued that “CO2 leads temperature,” or talked about the Medieval Warm Period, you have been talking about proxy data. And yes, there’s plenty of evidence for ice age/interglacial in the Southern Hemisphere, timing well with the general shift in climate in the NH. Much of the info on atmospheric conditions during ice ages comes from Antarctica.

Who said anything about catastrophes? Is that the lens through which you perceive climate change must happen for it to be global?

Of course there were ice ages and interglacials, with periods cooler and warmer than today. The evidence is prolific. The huge change in sea level is easiest to see (fossil coral in high mountains, for example), and ice-carved rocks in high latitudes is what first clued us in more than a century ago. Since then, the evidence is overwhelming. There’s no denying it, only ignorance of it.

As Roy said, the climate has always changed. We’re really scraping the bottom of the intellectual barrel if we’re going to deny that. Might as well believe the earth was created in its present form 6000 years ago.

If youve ever argued that CO2 leads temperature, or talked about the Medieval Warm Period, you have been talking about proxy data. And yes, theres plenty of evidence for ice age/interglacial in the Southern Hemisphere, timing well with the general shift in climate in the NH. Much of the info on atmospheric conditions during ice ages comes from Antarctica.

Dear doctor, can you pay attention to the air temperature in Russia Yamal Peninsula?It feels a little bit high and it’s almost zero degrees and what’s the situation that’s causing me to get a little bit of urination

Am I understand right about that?
The polar pressures that were originally attached to the arctic have moved to the north American continent, so the cold air on the yamal peninsula has been reduced by warmer air, leading to high temperatures on the yamal peninsula.

In fact, compared to global warming, I tend to accept more global cooling, sometimes i feeling afraid because of global warming, I do not to have child, Because I’m afraid my child not grow up before human perish, I am not alarmist, just feel like everything changes too fast, and the release of methane and carbon dioxide the thawing permafrost, everything is so scary, if the weather gets cold, I think I have a way to deal with, so,i just can only look forward to the into the little ice age God BLESS EARTH GOD BLESS HUMAN

Yes that is what I fear that all the cold air is being sucked out of the arctic by this polar plunge in North America and in march we will back to where we were last year with low sea ice extent. I would like to see a recovery in arctic sea ice extent and I am not concerned how cold it is in the mid latitudes even in the UK

Problem lies in the arctic temperatures if not back to normal, melting permafrost release of greenhouse gases (mostly methane), the end of the human will come, sincerely mid-latitude cold than the cold as the temperature back to 20 years of state I have a feeling now is if the arctic summer one day have no ice, basic human perish from what is, and feel that this kind of phenomenon will occur maybe few years , so I sincerely expect little ice age to come

Thank you for this most amusing banned words list. I will pass it around to my friends. As a meteorologist trained in the late 70s (concentration in mesoscale atmospheric systems), I too find these terms distasteful and agree with you on all. I look forward to reading more of your information and posts. Happy New Year.

Megalothymic — A relatively new word but one with an ancient root; Basically describes a compulsive need to appear superior to others. It probably resides in most of us more or less, but I attribute it to urbanites who think they should farm and ranch from the ballot booth, or those who blindly latch onto any and all simple (and usually wrong) ideas of how complex systems work. I usually compound it, such as in “……..megalothymic, fantasist hate groups”

we might indeed interpret it as a hint on the 1997/98 ENSO signal having been much stronger than that in 2015/16, despite the latter’s slightly higher average anomaly.

The same happens when performing such statistics on GHCN data; there you suddenly discover that a huge amount of stations reported their minimal temperature in january 1977 (and a lot of them in turn within CONUS).

Mr Spencer, perhaps you’d like to explain IN DETAIL exactly what you mean by this. If you are referring to the claim “They changed ‘global warming’ to ‘climate change'”, please explain who “they” is, when this happened, and why.

I would certainly hope someone who claims to be a rational scientist would not go around quoting mantra without providing some kind of justification.